A bit like Mr Jourdain wrote prose without realising it, I was an “EDHEC Resource” unawares. Until that day when a call from Véronique Donaghy steered me back towards my duties as an “atypical” resource, since not only was I the MD of a consultancy firm (that’s considered normal), but I was also a young writer, at the time having authored my first book, entitled Paris se lève and published by Editions Plon in September 2022. If you are eager to rush to your browser to find out more, bear in mind that a use a nom de plume: Armand Delpierre.

My books recount 7 days in the life of a team of investigators based at the SRPJ 92 in La Défense. Their adventures are imaginary but are based on real events. In Paris se lève, the first in the series, Lieutenant Pierre-Louis Madec and his colleagues hunt down the perpetrators of two crimes while at the same time dealing with the chaos in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo and kosher supermarket attacks.

I have somewhat mixed memories from my years at EDHEC. I had to repeat my first year after all. To draw a parallel with the world of sport, it’s the kind of subconscious error familiar to someone like tennis champion Benoît Paire, for example. Or Jean Van de Velde at the 18^th hole in the 1999 British Open, if you’re a golf fan. But I made friends for life, I got to know the city of Lille and its fantastic student dynamics, I did an exchange programme at the London School of Economics … so the overall assessment is positive – phew!

After all that, after a few months spent considering the idea of pursuing academia, I realised during my DEA in economics at Paris-Dauphine that I would be better off getting to work. So I started out in auditing, and then consulting at Arthur Andersen. My firm, when the Enron scandal broke in 2001, literally disintegrated beneath my feet, but fortunately both nature and business abhor a vacuum, so I was able to work a further 20 years in consulting, this time with BearingPoint. And the year the book was published, in 2022, I left that firm to take over as Managing Director in early 2023 at Colorado, another consulting firm, specialized in my area of predilection: the customer experience. And of course I found others from EDHEC there, in particular two young interns who hadn’t yet graduated and whose progress I followed closely. By the way, we’re recruiting! Young – and not so young – talents.

2022 also saw the 30-year reunion of the class of 1992. Getting together in Lille with around 100 other graduates thanks to our indefatigable reunion organiser, Alain Godet, was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Especially as word of my book publication had spread and so I was able to offer my old classmates nearly as many signed copies of Paris se lève as there had been years since we graduated. And despite attending many book fairs since, I rarely beat that benchmark. And I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all my classmates (they know who they are) who have helped, supported and carried me on this adventure. The magic of EDHEC is such that in this group there are friends I’ve known for 30 years and people I spoke to for the first time in my life at that reunion.

Receiving such support so many years after my studies made me want to give something back, so if one day you need an EDHEC Resource, don’t hesitate, my number is in the directory of graduates.

Patrice BEGOC
EDHEC Master 1993